ARTICLES

Abstract: This paper
investigates to the meaning（s） and the structuring principle（s） of the
pictorial representations of the four Dotaku bronze bells produced by a
distinct school of artisans in the late Middle Yayoi （Yayoi IV） period.
By applying the methodology of the ‘Myth analysis’ proposed by Claude
Levi-Strauss, it is revealed that the structural relationships
constituted by the pictorial representations of living beings depicted
on those bronze bells, ranging from insects to human beings, show all
the definitional elements of the myth that Levi-Strauss recognizes,
i.e.: dichotomy, transformation, and mediation. It is interpreted that
the principal meaning and function of that which was constituted by and
expressed with the relational structuring of the representations were
intended to enable the people of the time to make sense as to why the
components of their life-world became as they were. It is argued that
this mythological narrative also shows the characteristics of both cold
and hot societies of the Levi-Straussian sense, suggestive of the
social background of the myth represented by the pictorial
representations of those bronze bells.

Abstract: This contribution
examines acts of interment at cave burials, and ascertained that single
burials are the dominant form in western Japan and multiple burials are
dominant in eastern Japan. Also, two types can be discerned for the
multiple burials of eastern Japan from the end of the Late to the Final
Kofun periods. On the Pacific coast from the Miura peninsula to the
southern portion of the Tōhoku region, special treatment of the skull
only in the burial can be recognized, and as bracelets of limpet shell,
ring-shaped objects of deer antler, oracle bones, and so forth show a
similar distributional trend, a cultural sphere mediated by the sea is
posited. At the same time, pseudo-extended reburials, or secondary
burials of skeletonized remains that are laid out in the manner of an
extended burial, are seen from the Sagami to the Tōtōmi regions, and as
large cooking pots thought to have been used for boiling bonito, and
fish hooks of deer antler thought to have been used as lures for bonito
are distributed over a similar area, this is also seen as forming a
cultural sphere. The people interred in these cave burials are thought
to have been seafarers who trafficked the maritime regions described
above and gained their living from the sea. There are two peaks of cave
burial use, in the Middle Kofun and from the end of the Late to the
Final Kofun periods. Examining archaeological and historical materials
in contrasting fashion, cave burials can be understood as becoming
salient during periods of strengthened interference by the central
polity into the affairs of maritime peoples. It is concluded that cave
burials were a mortuary form proactively selected by maritime peoples
who took cognizance of their group identity, and for the formation and
maintenance of that identity, due to contact with Kofun culture which
they regarded as a cultural Other.

Keywords: Kofun period; cave
burials; maritime peoples; identity.

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